"Precious old darling!" she whispered, gratefully, and pursed her adorable lips to indicate to him that he might consider himself kissed. His stern eyes softened in a glance of father-love supreme. "Whose little girl are you?" he whispered, and, to that ancient query of parenthood, she gave the reply of childhood: "Daddy's." "Just for that, I'll offer the soldier a tremendous profit on Panchito. We'll see what his sentiment is worth." "Bet you a new hat, angel-face, you haven't money enough to buy him," Kay challenged. "Considering the cost of your hats, I'd be giving you rather long odds, Kay. You say this young man comes from the San Gregorio valley?" "So he informed me." "Well, there isn't a young man in the San Gregorio who doesn't need a couple of thousand dollars far worse than he needs a horse. I'll take your bet, Peaches. Of course you mentioned to him the fact that you wanted this horse?" "Yes. And he said I couldn't have him--that he was going to acquire him." "Perhaps he was merely jesting with you." "No; he meant it." "I believe," he said, smiling, "that it is most unusual of young men to show such selfish disregard of your expressed desires." "Flatterer! I like him all the more for it. He's a man with some backbone." "So I noticed. He wears the ribbon of the Congressional Medal of Honor. Evidently he is given to exceeding the speed-limit. Did he tell you how he won that pale-blue ribbon with the little white stars sprinkled on it?" "He did not. Such men never discuss those things." "Well, they raise fighting men in the San Gregorio, at any rate," her father continued. "Two Medal-of-Honor men came out of it. Old Don Miguel Farrel's boy was awarded one posthumously. I was in El Toro the day the commanding general of the Western Department came down from San Francisco and pinned the medal on old Don Miguel's breast. The old fellow rode in on his son's horse, and when the little ceremony was over, he mounted and rode back to the ranch alone. Not a tear, not a quiver. He looked as regal as the American eagle--and as proud. Looking at that old don, one could readily imagine the sort of son he had bred. The only trouble with the Farrels," he added, critically, "was that they and work never got acquainted. If these old Californians would consent to imbibe a few lessons in industry and economy from their Japanese neighbors, their wonderful state would be supporting thirty million people a hundred years from now." "I wonder how many of that mythical thirty millions would be Japs?" she queried, innocently. "That is a problem with which we will not have to concern ourselves, Kay, because we shall not be here." "Some day, popsy-wops, that soldier will drop in at our ranch and lock horns with you on the Japanese question."